Records request turns up little

Friday

May 10, 2013 at 12:01 AMMay 10, 2013 at 10:10 AM

There is no smoking gun in a series of emails uncovered from selectmen Martha Gjesteby’s email account.

Eleven emails from Gjesteby’s town account were reviewed this week following a Public Records Request made by Chris Allen, Pleasant Street. Allen requested the information in an April 25 email to Acting Town Manager Michael Milanoski.

Erin Dale

There is no smoking gun in a series of emails uncovered from selectmen Martha Gjesteby’s email account.

Eleven emails from Gjesteby’s town account were reviewed this week following a Public Records Request made by Chris Allen, Pleasant Street. Allen requested the information in an April 25 email to Acting Town Manager Michael Milanoski.

Allen said he wanted to review the emails because he had heard at the April 22 Town Meeting that Gjesteby had sent confidential information to former selectman Ronnie McMorris (an incident that led to an ethics complaint, filed by the other four selectmen in January) and wanted to see any email correspondence sent to and from Gjesteby and McMorris.

The request also asked for any emails between Gjesteby and TinyTown Gazette editor Tanna Kasperowicz, former selectman and current selectman candidate Karen Quigley, former selectman Ronnie McMorris, and former Town Manager Michael Coughlin.

Allen said in his email to Milanoski that he wanted to know what communications were going on between the elected official and former officials. He wrote that as a citizen, he had a right to know. Allen could not be reached for comment.

Milanoski then forwarded the request to Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Rob Bonnell asking him to estimate the time and cost for supplying the requested information. Bonnell got back to Milanoski a few days later with his estimate.

Bonnell found only 11 emails to and from Gjesteby, McMorris and Kasperowicz. Most of the emails were sent from Kasperowicz; the sole email Gjesteby sent was the one to McMorris on Dec. 8, 2012, that led to the ethics review. Information in this email was redacted before it was released. Allen was told it would cost $126.68 to search for, segregate and copy the 11 emails. Milanoski sent the bill to Allen on May 1 and asked if he would like to proceed. Since Allen said yes, Milanoski said that he then contacted Gjesteby.

Gjesteby was alarmed by the request and investigation into her email account, which she learned about when Milanoski called her on May 1. The selectman has said publicly that she rarely sends emails from her account and prefers to call people. Since she received her town email account last August (when Bonnell was hired and set up new town email accounts), Gjesteby has said that she often has trouble logging into it and receiving the same emails her fellow selectmen do; she has complained of this glitch at several past selectmen meetings.

Gjseteby said that she had a computer technician come to her house and work on her computer on April 19 because she was having issues with her email account. The technician said that her account had been hacked — someone was logging into her email and sending SPAM messages to her contacts. He suggested that Gjesteby change her password.

Puzzled

The selectman was puzzled as to how and why someone would hack into her account and send emails to her contacts, but even more distraught when Milanoski told her that Bonnell would be looking into her emails. Gjesteby was further perturbed that Milanoski informed her of this days after Allen made his request.

Gjesteby said in a written statement, which she read during the May 7 selectmen’s meeting, that she felt Milanoski had conducted himself improperly when it came to directing the CTO to go through her emails without notifying her first, or having the selectmen vote on the matter.

“This type of behavior is unprecedented in my memory, having served Cohasset in elected office since the 1980s,” Gjesteby stated. “It is a breach of our democratic form of government to have an appointed official surveil [sic] elected officials’ email without authority or notice.”

Milanoski said he was simply following the process for obtaining public records using a form approved by the Supervisor of Public Records at the Secretary of State’s office. The town manager also said that he personally did not troll through Gjesteby’s email account.

“I don’t have access to [officials’] email,” he said, adding that Bonnell does not look at town email addresses, either, unless a request comes in: “The only thing the CTO will review is a bonafide public records request.”

Milanoski also told the selectmen that Gjesteby had threatened him for conducting the email search, saying that it would affect her review of her performance and that he had gone “down a peg” in her eyes.

“This is highly inappropriate for an official to abuse her power to influence the release of public records,” said Milanoski. “I was doing my job and I stand behind that.”

Gjesteby countered that she did not attack or accost Milanoski, and said that the issue was his problem with her and not the other way around.

“You had this search going on… Was I doing something bad? I don’t know,” said Gjesteby. “It’s your problem… I don’t understand why you’re doing this kind of thing.”

The selectman further stated that she has encountered difficulty since she was elected to the board last May. “I’ve been under the gun,” she said. “I feel we’re equally elected and should be given equal information… I try to do my best for the town of Cohasset. I’m a worker here. I look into situations, and that’s it.”

Protocol

Selectman Fred Koed was concerned about the protocol that Milanoski used to inform Gjesteby of the email search. “I’m not clear — if this happened to any selectman, we wouldn’t be informed for five or six days? I’ve been a selectman for 14 years, and this is the first time I’ve seen it done this way.”

Milanoski said that he was awaiting Bonnell’s cost estimate before alerting Gjesteby, so he could relay the estimate to Allen and find out whether he still wanted to pursue the search. He said that this is always how he responds to public records requests.

“I went to Martha when I actually had some tangible information to deal with,” said Milanoski.

Selectman Diane Kennedy said that she would like to have a formal process in place to “get rid of the discomfort” such a matter can stir up between the town manager and an official.

“It’s like everything else — it’s not so much what you’re doing, it’s how you’re doing it,” Kennedy said, adding that there was a better way to handle these situations “instead of having everyone feel uncertain.”

Gjesteby said to Milanoski, “Imagine how shocked I was when I got your call.”

The town manager said he agreed there was a “lack of written policy or procedure” for this situation, which “should be articulated.” However, Milanoski also said that the same process is always followed for every public records request, and it adheres to state requirements.

Selectmen chair Paul Carlson said that this was a serious issue and should be on a future agenda. Since Tuesday night was Carlson’s last selectmen meeting, Kennedy, who is vice-chair, said that she will make sure it will be discussed “on a very soon agenda.”

Hackers strike town website

Selectman Martha Gjesteby isn’t the only recent victim of online hacking. The town website was hijacked early Monday morning by what appeared to be Algerian hackers. The homepage colors were changed to black and red with a message about Algeria.

Russ Bonetti, Selectman candidate and Community Preservation Committee chair, was the first to flag the issue and call Town Hall. Tracey Connors-Kelly, assistant to the town manager, then alerted Chief Technology Officer Rob Bonnell. Despite his being away from Cohasset on grand jury duty, Bonnell was able to fix the problem remotely.

Acting Town Manager Michael Milanoski commented on Bonnell’s quick fix. “Once it was identified there was an issue, he quickly secured and resolved the problem.”

The CTO said that this hacking problem is nothing new — Cohasset’s site has been hacked into before by people from other countries.

“The old website is built off an old unsupported content management system that has some small vulnerabilities,” Bonnell explained. “The vulnerability is not dangerous, just a pain that the front page can be changed. This is a known issue and can for the most part be stopped at the firewall level.”

The CTO said that he is working on a new backend for the website that “does not have any of these vulnerabilities.”

Of his ability to resolve issues like this, even while on jury duty, Bonnell said, “I work 24/7 for the Town of Cohasset. I have systems in place to warn me of any attacks on all town systems. I received the messages, excused myself from duty, connected to the respective town systems and resolved the issue in under five minutes by blocking the offending IP address from any of our networks.”